Guadalupe López-Íñiguez (b. 1983) is a Spanish musician and interdisciplinary researcher based in Finland. She is currently Adjunct Professor of Music Education at the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki, Postdoctoral Researcher at the Center for Educational Research and Academic Development in the Arts of the University of the Arts Helsinki, Vice-President of the Spanish Society for Psychology of Music and Musical Performance, and a freelance cellist. Guadalupe holds a PhD in Psychology from the Autonomous University of Madrid, and a Master’s Degree in Classical Music Performance from the Sibelius Academy.
As a researcher, Guadalupe is attempting to change the entire traditional teaching and learning paradigm in Western classical instrumental studies. She has thus specialized in the study of the psychological processes behind musical performance and music instruction, through an unusually wide range of research methods. Her scholarly expertise and interests in music research include cognitive and social constructivism (psychological school), self- regulation/efficacy/determination for performance optimisation, lifelong learning, musical and learner identities, giftedness and talent, and emotion theories. She presents her work regularly as an invited speaker and at international congresses, and has been published in books and impact journals indexed in the Web of Knowledge. She also serves as an expert for various journals, conferences, and institutions (e.g. European Commission), and has received numerous scholarships and prizes (e.g. Prize Bankia in the category of Best Music Researcher). Guadalupe has been a visiting scholar at top-notch universities and works regularly with world-leading scholars.
Guadalupe is currently leading her second postdoctoral research project, funded by the Academy of Finland (2018-2021), studying how to renew learning and performance practices among (under)graduate musicians by highlighting the importance of learner identity. Her PhD, which was awarded in 2014 and received the “Best PhD Thesis in Psychology” prize and the “Summa Cum Laude” distinction at her alma mater university, was carried out (on full scholarship FPU-UAM) under the supervision of Prof. Juan Ignacio Pozo, and focused on the analysis of the psychological processes involved in the acquisition of musical knowledge, particularly from constructivist perspectives. Her first postdoctoral project, funded by the Kone Foundation (2016–2018), focused on the holistic study and performance of the complete works for piano and cello by Beethoven and Mendelssohn, by combining several multidisciplinary perspectives. In addition, Guadalupe has worked since 2008 as a researcher in various well-funded collaborative research projects in Europe (e.g. I+D+i, Finnish Academy) related to the psychology of music learning and arts education.
As a musician, Guadalupe is specialised in historically informed practice on period instruments. She has appeared as a soloist at many prestigious venues, and has taken part in a number of notable festivals in Europe, Russia, and the US, including the BRQ Vantaa Festival (FI), the Moscow Philharmonic Society (RU), the American Beethoven Center (US), the Utrecht Early Music Festival’s Fabulous Fringe (NL), the Bergheim Cello Solo Festival (DE), the Soiva Akatemia Festival (FI), Sibafest (FI), and others. Alba Records released her critically acclaimed albums with the complete cello works by Gabrielli and Scarlatti in 2018, and the complete cello works by Mendelssohn with pianist Olga Andryushchenko in 2019—both albums funded by the Valencian Institute of Music. Guadalupe also plays at times with the Helsinki Baroque Orchestra, as well as other professional early-music ensembles, and has recorded for radio and television. In earlier years, she was selected as the principal cellist for the youth orchestras of the communities of Madrid and Valencia, and the city of Oviedo (Spain). She has been mentored by distinguished baroque, nineteenth-century, and modern cello masters.
As a pedagogue, Guadalupe has been teaching since she was 14, either privately or in state-funded institutions. Her teaching philosophy is social constructivist in essence, based on the belief that people actively construct meaning and knowledge from their experiences, ideas about the world, and prior knowledge, as a result of the interactions with others in the context of a culture, but also through an interdependence with their individual processes, where one’s own self-motivation plays a crucial role in learning. During the last few years, she has focused on teaching topics related to the educational psychology of music in higher education, in combination with her artistic and research activities. In addition, she also supervises doctoral theses and advises doctoral, postdoctoral and senior researchers in strategic international publishing, research impact, and popularising research for the wider public. Some time ago, she also taught cello performance to children and adults, some of whom are now professional musicians, as well as music and movement to toddlers—thus covering a wide spectrum of music education.
